Customer Reviews

Man on Earth: A Celebration of Mankind: Portraits of Human Culture in a Multitude of Environments

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I can't recommend this book enough. I purchased it because I read an interesting article which referenced it, and when I saw the price on Amazon, I thought "why not?" I'm very glad I did, because this is an incredibly provocative book. It provides vast amounts of information and insight into human civilizations of all sorts, all around the world. It will keep you thinking for quite some time after you read it, and will leave you with an enriched perspective on all sorts of matters having to do with human cultures and the interactions between and among them.

What a surprise that no reviews of this book have been submitted prior to this one. Perhaps the publication date (1988 in my hardcover edition) just slightly preceded the wiki-style user reviews now so commonplace on the web and any excitement generated in the first few years after publicatin fell off rapidly.

Nonetheless, Reader's survey of different styles of social organization is excellent and full of information and insights. His writing is lyrical in places, caustic in some, and a pleasure throughout. Several threads connect the disparate cultures he visited, photographed, and described in the book. The difficulties of managing food cultivation and supplies and the sometimes bizarre cultural practices that grow out of that basic need are a primary concern, as are the transformation and frequent destruction of traditional cultures once they are infiltrated and monetized by modern cultures. Also prominent in Reader's descriptions are man's profound interconnectedness with and dependency on his landbase and the flora and fauna found there.

Now, only 20 years later, much of the global economy that swept away local subsistence economies is coming unwound. Reader's descriptions of the variety of adaptations and accommodation man has employed over the millennia as his fortunes have changed give me some consolation that even as industrial civilization slips away, many will return to a time-honored tradition of living based on local resources without the globe-stomping hubris of modern civilization.